How to Remember Who You Are

Suzhou Architecture Doors, China. Photo by Lanvi Nguyen

INTELLIGENCE 2020 for Aries

Introduction: Of Aries and Aquarius

The vantage point from which to view our lives from the future is the Jupiter-Saturn
conjunction in Aquarius. Reading the charts from the viewpoint of Aries (rising or Sun),
Aquarius is the 11th house: the house of hopes and dreams, of community, of our shared
social environment. It is the house associated with the rewards of your professional efforts.

The conjunction takes place on Dec. 21, 2020, one of those momentous-sounding days,
about eight hours past the winter solstice. Jupiter conjunct Saturn is a 20-year event — a
rare and noteworthy one — though for reasons I’ll soon describe, this one is a call to action
by those who believe that peace, sanity and a real social measure of justice are possible.
Yet one underlying principle here is that there must be equanimity. True peace and peace
of mind do not come at the expense of another.

Notably, the conjunction takes place right in the zone where Mars was retrograde in the
summer of 2018, which I view not as an event in the past but as a potentially continuous
source of information and transformation (I cover this in more detail in your audio file).
Mars is your ruling planet, and its involvement in a truly rare retrograde in Aquarius
(nothing like it had happened in 47 years), was about you clearing space to be yourself,
amidst your peers and your community. You went through some process where you had to
open space, refresh the air, and potentially confront some social norms and sources of peer
pressure that were confining you, and in effect, blocking your growth.

The question to ask yourself, and the place to invest your vision, is what role do you see
yourself playing in society? This is likely to be an informal leadership role, though one
connected to your professional development, possibly as an outgrowth of it — such as a
corporate president being a leader in his or her profession, or being in a position to serve
as a philanthropist as a result of some other success. There will be times when you must
take on official responsibility. Yet in the end, your true power and influence come from
your social cachet, by which I mean respect, and not from your official position.

With the journey of Saturn and Pluto through Capricorn in the next two years, and a
conjunction centered in January 2020, you will be increasingly busy — in a truly rare spell
of professional focus and achievement, unlike anything you’ve attempted or accomplished
in the past. You know what you want; you must remember. You know who you are; you will
remember.

In these years, there is an unusual relationship between Aries and Aquarius, and this serves
as a resource for you. They have some crucial things in common that I’ve never seen
described in an astrology book, or heard spoken of by an astrologer. Yet they are easy to
spot, if you know the background. The most significant is found in the essence of Aquarius,
which is the relationship between the individual and the group. Things ruled by Aquarius
have a way of reverting to a cult mentality; this is not about the sign, or people born under
it, but about humanity’s misuse of an opportunity: that of distinguishing oneself as an
individual. The group power of Aquarius tends to dominate the individual. This is a
dangerous territory, and you can see it operating at every layer of society, from the
company cafeteria to the White House.

Aquarius contains this deep tension between self, the pressure to conform, and individual
self-expression. And in many ways, the same thing is also true of Aries. While Aries is very
much the sign of individuality, sometimes at all costs, it’s also the home of the Aries Point
(the first degree of the zodiac), which is a direct connection to the collective. The sign of
individual will connects to everyone, via some unusual property it possesses as not just the
first sign of the zodiac but also the reckoning point of our zodiac and the sidereal (Vedic)
zodiac.

So in a sense, Aries is Aquarius in reverse: the sign of the individual that magnifies and
multiplies into the collective.

They have one other thing in common, which is telling the story of our time in history: both
are connected to the prevailing technology of our era. Nobody would ever say that Aries is
the sign of technology, but it works out to be the scene of the most profound changes in
modern history, connected to broadcast media and the digital revolution. I’ve written
about this copiously, and this reading is not the appropriate space to tell the whole story,
so far as I know it (we have placed a number of articles on the resources page under Aries,
Eris and Technology).

However, to sum up, studying with the McLuhan family the past four years (the
descendants of 20th-century philosopher Marshall McLuhan), I’ve figured out that a
particular, very long cycle that happens in Aries, and which has been peaking in recent
years, is basically turning people into robots. These robot-people like to form tribes; and
neither tribes nor robots favor human individuality, or personal expression, or sincerity, or
self-awareness. By robots, I mean all the scripts and AI algorithms that are driving society
right now, and which are making us become like them.

What they favor is the suppression of individual human will and desire — and that’s not
going to work for you. It never has and it never will. Yet not only have you been personally
impacted by these developments, you live in a world where they are prevalent, and
becoming the dominant way of thinking and of being.

Chiron in Aries

The focus of your astrology, now and for the foreseeable future, is Chiron. Many other
significant events are present in the big picture, though Chiron for you will have the
deepest influence and signifies the theme of your life now, which is self-actualization.
Chiron raises awareness wherever it goes, and beginning on Feb. 18, it’s coming to you, to
stay for the foreseeable future.

Let’s get a quick definition of self-actualization going, and then build on it. Someone
named Kurt Goldstein defined it as “the tendency [of a person] to actualize itself as fully as
possible is the basic drive.” Carl Rogers described it as “the curative force in psychotherapy
— man s endenc o ac ali e himself, o become his po en iali ies … to express and
activate all the capacities of the organism.” The part I like about this the best is that he
describes self-actualization as a kind of tropism or driving force toward wellness in the
therapy process. It already exists within all of us. We merely need to tap into it. You
can read more here. However, I suggest you do some real reading on the topic, focusing
on books at least 40 years old.

It is significant that Chiron spends more time in Aries than in any other sign — about nine
years in total. This is because Chiron reaches what is called aphelion, the furthest distance
from the Sun, while in Aries. In total, Chiron’s journey into and through your sign spans
from April 17, 2018, (first ingress into Aries) through April 14, 2027, (last ingress into
Taurus).

By contrast, Chiron spends just 18 months in Libra, when it comes closest to the Sun, called
the perihelion (that happened last in 1996-1997).

Though it was discovered in Taurus, Chiron has a strong affinity for Aries, and its passage
through Aries seems well timed to address many issues involving self, self-concept and the
notion of identity (something that is critical at this time in our individual lives, and the life
of our culture). At the moment, our whole society is obsessed with identity, which is self-
concept.

Identity is not self, and much of this effort is, in my view, insincere and misdirected. For the
most part, it’s about labeling and tribal identity — not self-actualization.

Your quest, and your healing mission, is to find your true self; your most personally valid
state of being and of expression. This is easily said, and not so easily (or so often) done.
The reason is that in order to be who you are, it’s necessary to set aside or cast off
anything and everything that you are not. Most people you meet are heavily invested in
not-self. To the extent that you struggle with being yourself and with making choices that
work for you, you are likely to be invested in not-self. If you knowingly do things that don’t
work for you, and associate with people who do not support you, those are signs of
investment in not-self.

Let’s use a metaphor: honesty. People like to talk about being honest, and sometimes strive
to be so. Yet in order to be honest, one must confront all the things one was dishonest
about in the past. Honesty requires reckoning with the current state of one’s relationships,
and would likely require shaking all of them up. This is seen as dangerous, and potentially
painful. Were you to suddenly become transparent and honest about everything in your
life, you would be taking a big risk, or so it would seem. People might get upset. They
might not want to be associated with you. That is the risk of actually expressing yourself.

Yet Chiron in Aries is going to demand no less. This will begin with being honest with
yourself, aware of yourself, aware of your interactions with others down to the most
detailed level. To do this, you will be taken on a tour of all the ways that your awareness
has been suppressed, that you’ve allowed yourself to be held down, and all the ways
you’ve compromised and held yourself back. This can lead to a crisis.

Most people would rather not go through this. I say most, not all. You are being invited to
be one of the intrepid few who enters the process boldly, willingly and with full
participation.

We all have our laundry list of things we wish we could resolve in our lives. You will need to
set that aside for a while, and embark on this next stage of your healing journey without
any agenda other than to be aware of what is so; other than to fully awaken yourself.

Awareness of what is so can feel like a real confrontation. There is no compromise possible.
The condition of “I am living this way, people think I’m living this other way, and I really
want to live this entirely different way” must be engaged and seen for what it is, and once
that engagement happens, then the need to make changes becomes not only obvious but
inevitable.

Chiron and all that it represents is a compelling force. In a sense there is no escaping, only
establishing a relationship with the impetus to change, and your deep personal need to
heal. This means the need to grow, and that entails an entirely new basis for making
decisions. Different people will respond to it in different ways. Some will choose to go
deeper than others. Some will respond by grafting onto the identity politics and self-
concept level, which is already pervasive. You must be able to discern the difference.

Chiron never allows us to dump the past, like tearing down an old shopping mall to build a
new one; rather, there must be a careful reckoning with everything we have experienced,
and what it means to us. The underlying ground must be examined and understood.

However, the prevailing conditions of society right now are not supportive of this. In fact,
digital technology, artificial intelligence and the tribal mentality these things are
propagating are driving just about everything in the opposite direction. Here, we have a
picture of the confrontation that you’ll likely be engaging on some level with your peers,
your family and with society. To express yourself as a distinct individual with your own
views, your own intentions and your own desires is dangerous business right now, but it
goes deeper.

To be yourself means transcending even these more or less rudimentary human needs, and
engaging in a process of the most profound transformation. Doing so challenges people; it
pushes their buttons; it triggers them. Yet it’s no fun to go kicking and screaming. That is
not real awareness; it’s more like resistance for its own sake. What do you have to lose?
Well, all that is not true. And this can stir up other people.

Someone going through a real growth process does not present a “safe space” for others;
it challenges them. By changing, you will be challenging the people around you, not
because you want to, but because that is what’s bound to happen when you fully engage
your process of becoming true to yourself. In fact it might happen when you take your first
steps (such as by questioning an intimate relationship). By your process of awakening you
will provoke others into confronting the lies they are telling themselves and that they are
trying to believe. So the process of self-actualization has a social impact. At times, it can
feel anti-social. Yet it’s essential that you not worry about everyone else. Keep your focus
on yourself, your own necessities of growth, your own inner awareness.

The Human Potential Ethos

The last time Chiron entered Aries, about 50 years ago, there was an ethos in society much
more supportive of people doing their thing, pushing personal limits and daring to enter
the territory of change; of their personal unknown, come what may. Today, these things are
all but unthinkable. True, there was plenty of cultish bullshit afoot at that time, though
there was, at least, the space to experiment and to grow in a bold way. There were some
talented and daring therapists teaching and in practice, and useful forms of group process
being developed. Many authors were writing with the intention of helping people awaken.

Today, we have psychiatric medication, a near-total lack of qualified (by which I mean
competent and daring) therapy, and just about every influence being related to
consumerism. We have a prevailing ethic of “your awareness threatens my lack of
awareness, and therefore you are bad.” This takes about a thousand different forms.
There was one other crucial difference. In the late 1960s, there was a cultural ethos that
allowed for sexual experimentation. I don’t mean claiming an identity and going to a
march. I mean being and doing and exploring with one’s mind and feelings and body. Not
everyone was into it. We could speculate about who was and was not sincere (though that
would be guessing). Yet at the time there was the potential to find places in society, and to
find many people, who were challenging the status quo of the day. Today, nearly every
factor strives to interfere with just this, and there are potentially serious consequences if
there is some kind of a mishap, or someone broadcasts their personal agenda into the
interwoven world of the internet.

Today, what is permitted is self-concept and tribal identity, which are being driven by
robotics. We might say that these qualities are set within an environment of robotics and
artificial thought, though the effect is the same.

Whatever we might say about the social milieu of our age, one thing we cannot deny is
that every social interaction, including the full amorous and erotic spectrum of experience,
is run through the robot. This has many effects, including absolutely no privacy whatsoever.
This, in turn, has decimated the inner space needed to grow (it has been supplanted, badly,
by the notion of “safe space,” meaning a room in your university, but this can never replace
inner space; it’s a mockery).

It seems that for many people, the internet is the only way to meet people, which may be
convenient but it bypasses all of the pheromone and hormone levels of interaction, and all
other non-visual and non-verbal cues, and the body language that so often attracts us to
others — and replaces it with something else.

It’s not merely that our senses are being filtered and reorganized. It’s that humans tend to
become like our environment; like the tools that we use. I might not dwell on this so much
had the now-waning but still very much alive Uranus-Eris conjunction not occurred in Aries
— however, it did. Uranus-Eris is the very sigil of the broadcast age and the digital age in
one cycle. You will need to assess the influence of this on your existence, your experience
of your body, your experience of your intellect and how you relate to others — individually
and in groups.

This calls for real self-awareness. Yet you don’t need to go far to get started. Remember
yourself 20 years ago: what you did, what you felt, what you thought was possible, what
you thought was appropriate, who you related to and how — and compare that to yourself
now. That will give you a clue the trajectory involved.

You can use another metric: what is the state of your curiosity today? How boldly do you
explore yourself and the world — having nothing whatsoever to do with social media
platforms, or the internet? We have a distorted idea of what brave and dangerous mean
today. One is considered brave if they meet someone for coffee; anything not delivered by
automated feed is considered potentially dangerous (and we all know what AOL’s
admonition to “surf safely” means).
Now, Chiron is about to enter Aries for eight years, after having made a brief visit last year.
This has personal implications for you, and for your experience of the world. It is also the
demarcation of a new era of your life, which in fact began last spring.

Of note, you have also just been through seven years of Uranus in your sign. This has come
along with the jolts and surprises for which Uranus is famous. It’s also been a scattering
influence. The relief of Chiron will be its ability to focus, and its property of grounding. You
can afford to slow down a little, too. Indeed, you must.

Environment and Liminality

The environment — its features and qualities — tends to hang out below the level of
liminality: the threshold of awareness. The environment gets our attention when something
goes wrong, or changes precipitously (the electricity goes out, the interent stops working,
there’s a wildfire, a hurricane or some such thing). Then, the environment temporarily bobs
above the threshold of liminality, and quite often we’re suddenly inundated by it. This
sense of, or fear of, inundation is the incentive to not pay attention; and it is tempting,
particularly with so much pain and chaos available to perceive. Chiron’s presence is an
experiment in liminality: in paying attention to what you missed before, particularly in your
own responses to events.

Imagine you woke up one morning able to perceive all that you had never perceived
before, or only caught glimpses of. That is one probable effect of Chiron. This is not a one-
time event but rather a journey, in consciousness and through the world. Chiron transits
have their ups and downs, though they’re always meaningful; and usually, our lives are
much better for attending to the business that Chiron demands.

The first full year of this transit, and whatever may have unfolded last year related to Chiron
or to Mars retrograde, are worth taking under close advisement. Early in its run through
Aries, Chiron is making aspects to two slow-moving outer planets that in many ways
represent defining concepts of our time in history. They are Pholus and Salacia.

Pholus in Capricorn; Salacia in Aries

Pholus is now very early in its run through Capricorn, and Salacia is early in its run through
Aries. The two will basically travel in a perpetual square through their respective signs, and
then change signs together in 2043. So this will be a power source, or source of chaos,
operating behind everything for decades. It would make sense now to set some
parameters, and some intentions, and to have a vision for how to use this rather unusual
aspect pattern.

By the way, in all my studies, I have never seen a transiting square that lasts for decades. In
astrology, events gain influence by their rarity and, often, their duration. In effect, Pholus
and Salacia are now united as one factor, one element. What these planets represent is
worth a bit of reflection.
Pholus is a centaur planet, the second discovered after Chiron. Unlike its immediate
predecessor, whose action is usually slow and meticulous, Pholus is reactive, and events
tend to develop fairly quickly under its influence. One action of Pholus is to uncork the
pressure.

Whatever develops can be precipitated by something that is subtle, seemingly insignificant,

or catalytic. It’s the small cause with the big effect, as Robert von Heeren and Dieter Koch
put it in their 1995 book, Pholus, Wandler zwischen Saturn und Neptun. (If you know
someone who reads German, perhaps buddy up and have them translate some of it for
you — it’s interesting.)

Salacia, mythological forebear to the word salacious, seems packed with lust and longing
and immaturity. Salacia could be great fun, where people are informed and have some
grounding in their sexuality. What you identify as is not the operative factor; what you do
and how you feel is. However, we live in frantic, ignorant times, where many young people
are still inflicted with abstinence indoctrination (as were many people expected to function
as adults today).

We live in times of vast pent-up sexual energy. If you can feel it, whether within you or
around you, you know what I mean. This is an energetic state, and socially, there are
strictures (restrictions, rules, panic attacks) coming from all directions. There is the
influence of robotics, from Tinder to porn feeds. And there is an easily understandable
general phobia around vulnerability, particularly with anyone new; a kind of sly terror
around really letting down one’s guard. Can you blame anyone? Combined with the
prevailing disembodied state of the planet, that rarely ever seems like a good idea. Yet this
aspect is holding the power of a bomb. The tension is going to need to go somewhere.

Now, consider that Chiron will be passing through this setup over the next year (beginning
immediately in February), bringing matters into awareness, perhaps to crisis level. Since
we’re talking about Chiron, this is fairly easy to decipher: there is a healing need, and a
healing process, and it extends through your whole being: who you are, and what you do.

Individually, for you, this is describing the nature of your awakening: what its constituents
are, and how much energy is contained in it. As was well understood by the bolder and
more sincere therapy methods of one Chiron cycle ago, growth is directly linked to one’s
sexual evolution and maturity. There is no way to be a mature and functioning adult
without being able to relate in a level way with other mature, functioning adults, and this is
impossible without a mature approach to sexuality.

This whole scenario represents a significant part of Chiron in Aries for you, a kind of
initiation at the beginning of the transit where you go through some kind of test — and
gain confidence as a result.

Referring back to Jupiter conjunct Saturn in Aquarius, this conjunction specifically describes
a rare development of social confidence. There is the question of the social acceptability of
individuating. This is where you must not falter or yield. You are in the vanguard. You will
be getting the first and most potent infusion of Chiron, and you are already under the
influence of Salacia. This is guidance to be your real self, rather than to “identify” as
something.

Said another way, conformity is not an option. You certainly may find bona fide
community, and you’re a lot likelier to find it when you stay strong in your process of self-
becoming. And part of the key to the lock will be gaining a deeper understanding of, and
trust of, your sexuality. This is elemental to your life and your relationships, like the blood
coursing through your veins. In our time, we may pretend not to understand the
connections, though they are intuitive; the awareness dawns when you’re ready and willing
to receive it.

Where Chiron is concerned, it’s essential to have guidance and modeling. Old material
comes up, and new territory must be explored. We need teachers who have been through
the process, and have emerged successfully. We don’t have many models for this in our
society, though they exist. What you are looking for are people who are loving and open-
minded, and who do not live their lives driven by dogma. One necessary element of a valid
teacher is courage.

Seen one way, Chiron passing through the Pholus-Salacia square is calling on you to
express your passion. This is true even if it’s been a while, and even if the world is in a
social big chill (under the menace of global warming) and the disembodied chaos of the
digital-AI era. You are alive, you have your purpose, you have your desires, and you still
seek your freedom.

The One Thing to Remember About Chiron

Chiron’s action is always gentle at first. You will get clear messages that present you with
options to make changes. Those changes need to be engaged with action rather than
merely in principle. This is not the time to do something eventually, it’s the time to do
something now, and to stick with it.

Under a Chiron transit, you may first go through a phase where you’re catching up with
everything else you put off in the past; you will reckon with all the unfinished business of
the past — and this is the process that will get the gentle tap on the shoulder first. Ethics is
a topic of prime importance where Chiron is concerned, and needs to be a correspondingly
urgent place to focus your awareness and action.

Should you evade this call to action, the second call will be more intense, most likely
something that you cannot evade because it’s right in front of you, demanding attention: a
kind of crisis. Should you evade that, then the next step is typically a kind of breakdown of
a system in your life: a support system, financial system, your health, a relationship, a
business.
If you respond appropriately, you will have a chance of not only preserving the important
aspects of what you’ve created, but also of growing them. But that’s not what this is really
about: it’s about you and how you respond to existence.

Chiron is about responding as an adult, to life’s challenges and to adult necessities. Be

assured that nearly every element of our cultural milieu will give you at least some
resistance, including people you consider your friends. Your choice to grow and mature will
threaten all those who do not choose to do so. None of this can stop you. It must not.
Summon your wisdom, and get ready to get real.

Additional Transits to Your 10th House

Our planned destination on this journey is the alignment of late 2020: the Jupiter-Saturn
conjunction in the first degree of Aquarius. The chart presents a picture of you having
found your place in the world, in your community and in your profession. This is a place of
responsibility and of creative action, in that order.

Yet to get there, you will need to go through an initiation in the 10th house, described by
the movement of Saturn and Pluto, which form a conjunction in early 2020 (on Jan. 12) — a
year that begins with one conjunction and ends with another. Yet the year leading to the
Saturn-Pluto conjunction — our current year — will bring many important challenges that
will guide you in the direction of the true calling described by Jupiter-Saturn. The journey
itself is through Capricorn, the sign related to the structures of society, and in the
microcosmic sense of that, to family.

On Dec. 2, 2019, Jupiter arrives in Capricorn, and this will give you a boost. If you do the
work of Pluto and Saturn, you are likely to experience an opportunity presented by Chiron.

The essence of the 10th is responsibility, a topic that is distinctly unpopular in our time in
history. Responsibility always starts with your ability to be responsive to your environment
and your situation. It expands from there. Very few people seem interested, and that
doesn’t make it any more appealing; anyone who takes responsibility has to deal with a lot
of people who are not going to do so, so they will be carrying considerable weight. Yet at
this stage, you don’t really have much in the way of options: you gotta do what you gotta
do.

This is not about doing for the sake of impressing anyone, or doing for the sake of others;
your task is to take on the challenges of your own life — for a purpose that you may not
understand today, but which you will understand when you arrive there — and by there, I
mean Aquarius, the 11th house.

The beauty of Saturn in the 11th is that it’s about your distinct place in the world. But you
get there via the 10th — by being responsive and responsible. This is something you will
earn, not something that will be handed to you. The earning process comes through
Capricorn and the 10th — what’s sometimes called the 10th-house work of building your
structure, your method and your reputation.
One theme of the 10th is direction. In theory, it’s about fame and notoriety (you will read
this in nearly any old astrology book), but I’ve cast the charts of countless famous people
with nothing special going on in the 10th. So, I’ve begun to explore other themes
associated with this house. In our world, direction is one of them.

The issue with direction here on planet Peter Pan is that one must give up other directions
to go the one that’s necessary, and that can be frightening. The alternative is to go in
circles, or to go “forward in all directions,” though your planets are demanding focus and
focused action. This is not a career development project; Chiron in Aries prevails. You are in
a personal development project.

One thing I’ve noticed is that the 10th house helps people orient on existence, or it can —
and cultivating a sense of responsibility is the great benefit here. While this is indeed about
reputation, we could say that responsibility exceeds reputation. The problem with
responsibility is that it usually describes something people don’t want to do, or that seems
like a burden. I am talking about the tasks and goals you have come here to do, specifically
to develop yourself and to contribute to the world — both, at once.

I’ve noticed that a new phrase has come into common use lately: executive function. That
means the ability to administrate your life, make decisions and be accountable to yourself.
The 10th house would be the one that covers this.

You’ve had Pluto moving through your 10th solar house, Capricorn, for the past decade
(beginning in 2008). This has had several modes of action. One has been to disrupt your
status quo over and over again, compelling you to put it back together. There’s a chance
you’ve taken the brunt of economic and corporate upheavals of the past decade, and this
has made you a survivor — and it’s driven your evolution, compelling you to be a stronger,
more resourceful person than ever.

Then there is the focusing quality of Pluto. If you have a sense of mission, Pluto is your best
friend — and if you need a sense of mission, Pluto can be a fantastic teacher. In our
modern context, we give Pluto props for being a spiritualizing influence in astrology, what
you might think of as the reclamation of shadow material. There is room at the top —
particularly for people who want to take charge of their lives and do things well, in a time
of global upheaval. In a funny way, though, your chart looks like an image of the Secretary
of Agriculture ascending to the presidency through some strange set of circumstances.

A Note About Transits in Pisces

Pisces is the 12th place or 12th house from Aries — the realm of what is deep within you,
and what some call the “unconscious.” After Chiron enters your sign, there will be two
major influences remaining in Pisces: Neptune and Nessus. The 12th, Pisces, Neptune and
Nessus all have a way of operating invisibly and below the level of awareness. Under this
astrology, it’s essential that you refine your intuition, and that you be able to distinguish
intuition from fear. This takes practice.
The other caution of this house is that you not get lost in fantasies. The mind’s capacity to
imagine serves a vital purpose — a kind of test of what might be — though that is different
from living in a dream world, particularly where art and sex are concerned. There is a
difference between fantasizing and physical experience: the difference being that one leads
to growth, and the other is a kind of cul-de-sac that can easily lead nowhere.

You have not had an experience until you have actually done something, experimented,
explored and engaged the potential to fail or make a mistake. It’s always true that lived
reality is different from the imagined version of something, and reckoning that difference
over time, through many experiments, is essential to gaining maturity. As for
experimenting, anything worth trying once is worth trying two or three times, to see how
you actually feel about it. Most of the time, once is not enough.

Uranus in Taurus: Revolutionary Values

We live in the age of the Social Justice Warrior — the latest huckster claiming they will
make the world a better place. You have Uranus moving through Taurus, your 2nd house,
which represents a values revolution that will influence you personally, and which to some
extent the world will experience as well.

Let’s conclude our reading with a discussion of this transit, which began briefly last year,
and takes hold in 2019, for a total of seven years of action. Uranus in Taurus would seem to
be the meeting of two opposites — Taurus values stability, tradition and a warm lunch,
while Uranus upends these things for lunch. Uranus says expect the unexpected, and is a
reminder that reality forever changes.

I would sketch out three basic levels to this transit, within slightly different contexts. The
first is practical. Your 2nd house influences your available cash. There can be wild financial
swings under this kind of Uranus transit, and you must be mindful of them. Save cash; keep
your investments solid. Buy only what you need. Be particularly careful of investments
involving technology, whether that means what you put in your home and office, or
financial instruments such as stocks. This transit is likely to have a destabilizing effect on
the world economy and you must hedge your bets. That said, make sure you have what
you actually need. If your business involves the use of a computer, get a good one. If you
depend on a vehicle, invest in a safe and dependable one.

The next level is an experiment in self-esteem. This transit will be guiding you to think of
yourself in different ways — in unexpected ways — and will encourage you to violate some
of your most deeply held personal traditions. Make sure you remember what is truly
important to you, even as you continue to discover what is. Yet on this level, the essence is
self-esteem.

I have tried to describe this quality many times in Planet Waves articles, and I always feel
like I fall short of making it accessible; I think it’s an elusive concept, because the reflexive
state of holding yourself in esteem is easy to misinterpret. However, perhaps this is more
easily understood as something earned with yourself than as something merely claimed,
and part of how you earn it is by making gradual progress. That said, Uranus can represent
revolutionary changes, and you may find yourself thinking very differently about who you
are, and how you represent yourself in the world around you.

Where Uranus is concerned, it’s essential that you stay away from looking to acceptance by
groups as a metric of your respect for yourself. This is dangerous, because first it can have
no bearing in lived reality, and second, if you find yourself no longer accepted, your self-
respect can tank. So make sure you own your evaluations of yourself, be fair, and look for
signs of progress.

Thinking in New Dimensions

As you know, you’re experiencing major transits in your sign and in Capricorn, your 10th
solar house — your professional affairs, your responsibilities, and your standing in the
world. Both demand leadership by example. Both demand that you be adaptive and that
you take ownership of your life.

Saturn in your 10th is a rare and potentially very helpful transit, because it indicates a
period of achievement. It’s also associated with doing things the right way in some classical
sense of that: not skipping steps, not seeking to get rich quick, sharing credit where credit
is due, and approaching your most important and visible roles with an aura of humility and
emphasis on service. You are, potentially, in one of the great periods of achievement in
your life, or you are entering it now.

While you’re doing this, Uranus in Taurus is going to give you many ideas for thinking in
new dimensions. Those ideas are yours to use and explore. Write them down. Develop
them. Let yourself go new, interesting, and weird places. You don’t have to do everything
you think of; what you want is for your intellect and imagination to be able to run free.
Then you must master the gift of harnessing the creative power of your mind, which is
largely about discernment.

While this is happening, your 10th house transits are giving you the opportunity to achieve,
and Chiron in Aries is driving you to become. In this sense, Uranus in Taurus is a resource. It
will encourage you and in a way liberate you to think differently and to think in interesting,
quirky ways. Look up the “thinking outside the box” metaphor — it’s a good one. It’s not
what you think — it’s about breaking rules and going to a different level of thought.
There’s really just one thing to remember while you’re doing all of this growing, thinking
and achieving: you must have a bottom-line code that you live by. This needs to be
something like a “straight shooter, straight talk” code, where you vow to yourself to be
honest with yourself and with others, and to correct your errors.

Then, if you stay awake, all of creation is your art studio. Step in, and remember who you
are.
The Self-Acceptance Paradox

Within the milieu of personal growth and self-actualization, there is something I’ve
identified, which I call the self-acceptance paradox. I want to call it to your attention. We
know that in order to be happy, it’s necessary to accept ourselves as we are. But the whole
notion of growth would seem to imply becoming different, which in some way implies not
accepting something about yourself.

I think this trips up more people than we might imagine, and it can be poignant with
Chiron in Aries, for you or for anyone. As one of the noteworthy teachers of the 1970s said,
we are addicted to paradoxes. So we might let that part go: any attachment to the seeming
contradiction, or its resulting frustration.

It’s reasonable to choose an area of your being or existence where you want to grow, and
focus your efforts there — but without judging yourself. I think the real problem is
judgment. The notion that you might want to be a better guitar player does not need to
come with judging yourself for not playing the way you want to. Rather, you choose to
improve, and you can — if you want — take the steps to do so. That in itself might require
maturity (being disciplined enough to practice; finding a teacher you can work with, and
whom you respect). Of course, the material may be far more personal or painful than
wanting to play a musical instrument.

In any event, I have seen that the essential factor is not judging yourself unworthy or bad.
This alone is vital learning, for which the seeming issue is a kind of ruse. You are not
choosing to grow because you are bad, or unworthy; you would be choosing to grow, and
to become, because that’s the thing to do. And it is.

Remember that what we call growth and becoming are more often about bringing out
something within you that is already there. As you move through your process, remind
yourself of that often. There are no shortcuts; there is only a journey to yourself — what A
Course in Miracles describes as a journey without distance to a destination that has never
changed.